Total Research Output Research Articles

Two decades of progress in glioma methylation research: the rise of temozolomide resistance and immunotherapy insights.

This study aims to systematically analyze the global trends in glioma methylation research using bibliometric methodologies. We focus on identifying the scholarly trajectory and key research interests, and we utilize these insights to predict future research directions within the epigenetic context of glioma. We performed a comprehensive literature search of the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) to identify articles related to glioma methylation published from January 1, 2004, to December 31, 2023. The analysis included full-text publications in the English language and excluded non-research publications. Analysis and visualization were performed using GraphPad Prism, CiteSpace, and VOSviewer software. The search identified 3,744 publications within the WoSCC database, including 3,124 original research articles and 620 review articles. The research output gradually increased from 2004 to 2007, followed by a significant increase after 2008, which peaked in 2022. A minor decline in publication output was noted during 2020-2021, potentially linked to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. The United States and China were the leading contributors, collectively accounting for 57.85% of the total research output. The Helmholtz Association of Germany, the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), and the Ruprecht Karls University of Heidelberg were the most productive institutions. The Journal of Neuro-Oncology led in terms of publication volume, while Neuro-Oncology had the highest Impact Factor. The analysis of publishing authors revealed Michael Weller as the most prolific contributor. The co-citation network analysis identified David N. Louis's article as the most frequently cited. The keyword analysis revealed "temozolomide," "expression," "survival," and "DNA methylation" as the most prominent keywords, while "heterogeneity," "overall survival," and "tumor microenvironment" showed the strongest citation bursts. The findings of this study illustrate the increasing scholarly interest in glioma methylation, with a notable increase in research output over the past two decades. This study provides a comprehensive overview of the research landscape, highlighting the importance of temozolomide, DNA methylation, and the tumor microenvironment in glioma research. Despite its limitations, this study offers valuable insights into the current research trends and potential future directions, particularly in the realm of immunotherapy and epigenetic editing techniques.

A Bibliographic Analysis of Indian Contribution in Application of Presurgical Naso-Alveolar Molding in Cleft Lip/Palate Infants

Background: Pre-surgical nasoalveolar molding is a novel treatment modality applied in cleft lip/palate infants prior to surgery. Numerous articles have been published in the literature. Using Bibliographic analysis tt is essential to know the nation wise contribution of total research output towards PSNAM. Aim: To evaluate Indian contribution globally on the domain ‘application of presurgical naso-alveolar molding in cleft lip/palate infants’ by analysing all the studies published till date. Materials and Methods: A detailed bibliographic database search was carried out using PUBMED for a period of two months from September to October 2023. Different Mesh keywords in several combinations were used to obtain the articles. All types of published articles from inception till October 2023 and were published in English language were considered for this bibliographic analysis. The selected published articles pertaining to Indian Institutions, researchers or authors and specialties were tabulated and evaluated to obtain the overall bibliographic details. Results: India’s global contribution was 6.65% (total 31 articles). More number of case reports (n=15) were published followed by case control studies (n=5). Highest publication credit was conquered by author Thakur S (n=5) and Journal of Indian Prosthodontic Society and Contemporary clinical dentistry journals shared maximum articles published (n=5 each) having impact factor of 0.265 and 1.2 respectively. South zone contribution was highest (n=12) in that Karnataka state bagged with highest contribution. H.P. Government Dental College and Hospital and regarding specialty, Pediatric and Preventive Dentistry contributed more research work towards PSNAM. Conclusion: From the present bibliographic review, it was concluded that there is a growing demand and increasing trend in the application of PSNAM in cleft lip/palate infants. The current review provides insight into the current literature on PSNAM and paves for further research and its application in clinical practice

Creating a Visual Topic Map for Battery Researchers Using a Large Global Open Dataset

Battery related research has gained increasing attention in recent years. A large number of research papers about battery are being published as open access. In order to explore the research content in these papers efficiently, it is necessary to develop information management tools to capture the knowledge embedded in them.We are working on a project to create a visual topic map for battery researchers. This map connects battery researchers according to their research topics. This allows potential connection between researches with similar research topics, which increase collaboration opportunities to advance battery research. Additionally, visualization of research content supports intuitive capturing of research trend by maximizing information absorbance.We extract all published works related to battery research from OpenAlex1, which is a fully open catalog of the global research that offers significant advantages in terms of data coverage and affordability and openness. Anther important feature of OpenAlex is that, every article is tagged with multiple concepts using automatic classifier. In addition to concepts extracted from OpenAlex dataset, we used a pre-trained large language model, named KeyBERT2, to further extract representative terms from the work abstract. KeyBERT is a minimal and easy-to-use keyword extraction technique based on the transformers model.For each researcher, we have extracted all concepts and terms from all the articles that authored by that author. Using those terms and concepts, we formulate a vector for each researcher that represents the total research output. To find researchers with similar research interests, we measure similarity between the vectors in the authors space. Top matching authors are connected visually to create a map expands over representative topics in battery related research. Figure 1 shows a snapshot of this map. Researchers names were hidden for privacy purposes. 1Priem, J., Piwowar, H., & Orr, R. (2022). OpenAlex: A fully-open index of scholarly works, authors, venues, institutions, and concepts. ArXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.01833 2Grootendorst, M. (2020). KeyBERT: Minimal keyword extraction with BERT. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4461265 Figure 1

Ukrainian arts and humanities research in Scopus: a bibliometric analysis

PurposeThis article presents the results of a quantitative analysis of Ukrainian arts and humanities (A&H) research from 2012 to 2021, as observed in Scopus. The overall publication activity and the relative share of A&H publications in relation to Ukraine's total research output, comparing them with other countries. The study analyzes the diversity and total number of sources, as well as the geographic distribution of authors and citing authors, to provide insights into the internationalization level of Ukrainian A&H research. Additionally, the topical spectrum and language usage are considered to complete the overall picture.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses the Scopus database as the primary data source for analyzing the general bibliometric characteristics of Ukrainian A&H research. All document types, except Erratum, were considered. A language filter was applied to compare the bibliometric characteristics of English versus non-English publications. In addition to directly imported data from Scopus, the study employs the ready-to-use SciVal tools to operate with A&H subcategories and calculate additional bibliometric characteristics, such as Citations per Publication (CPP), Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) and journal quartiles. Information on the country of journal publishers and details on delisted journals from Scopus were obtained from the official Source Title List available on the Elsevier website and the SCImago Journal and Country Rank Portal.FindingsAccording to the results obtained, the publication patterns for Ukrainian A&H research exhibit dynamics comparable to those of other countries, with a gradual increase in the total number of papers and sources. However, the citedness is lower than expected, and the share of publications in top-quartile sources is lower for 2020–2021 period compared to the previous years. The impact of internationally collaborative papers, especially those in English, is higher. Nevertheless, over half of all works remain uncited, probably due to the limited readership of the journals selected for publication.Originality/valueThis study provides original insights into the bibliometric characteristics of Ukrainian A&H publications between 2012 and 2021, as assessed using the Scopus database. The authors’ findings reveal that Ukraine's A&H publications have higher visibility than some Asian countries with similar population sizes. However, in comparison to other countries of similar size, Ukraine's research output is smaller. The authors also discovered that cultural and historical similarities with neighboring countries play a more significant role in publication activity than population size. This study highlights the low integration of Ukrainian A&H research into the global academic community, evident through a decline in papers published in influential journals and poor citedness. These findings underscore the importance for authors to prioritize disseminating research in influential journals, rather than solely focusing on indexing in particular databases.

Do Articles Shared by Academic Medicine Social Media Influencers Drive Future Citation Rates?

To assess the role of influential figures within social media (SoMe) in driving future citations. All original articles published in the Journal of Urology (JU) and European Urology (EU) in 2018 were identified. For each article, number of mentions on any SoMe platform, article's Twitter reach, and total citations were collected. Article characteristics such as type of study, article topic, and open access status were identified. Total academic research output was obtained for first and last authors of included articles. Influential SoMe figures were defined as users that tweeted about included articles and had over 2000 followers. For these accounts, we collected total followers, total tweets, engagement statistics, verification status, and academic characteristics such as total citations and total prior publications. The impact of social media, article, and academic characteristics on future citations was assessed using panel data regression analysis. We identified 394 articles with 8,895 total citations and 460 SoMe influencers. On panel data regression modeling, tweets about a specific article were associated with future citations (0.17 citations per tweet about an article, p<0.001). SoMe influencer characteristics were not associated with increased citations (p>0.05). The following non-SoMe-associated characteristics were predictive of future citations (p<0.001): study type (prospective studies received 12.9 more citations than cross-sectional studies), open access status (4.3 citations more if open access, p<0.001), and previously well-published first and last authors. While SoMe posts are associated with increased visibility and higher future citation rates, SoMe influencers do not appear to drive these outcomes. Instead, high quality and accessibility were more predictive of future citability.

Clinicopathological Characteristics and Mutational Landscape of APC, HOXB13, and KRAS among Rwandan Patients with Colorectal Cancer.

Cancer research in Rwanda is estimated to be less than 1% of the total African cancer research output with limited research on colorectal cancer (CRC). Rwandan patients with CRC are young, with more females being affected than males, and most patients present with advanced disease. Considering the paucity of oncological genetic studies in this population, we investigated the mutational status of CRC tissues, focusing on the Adenomatous polyposis coli (APC), Kirsten rat sarcoma (KRAS), and Homeobox B13 (HOXB13) genes. Our aim was to determine whether there were any differences between Rwandan patients and other populations. To do so, we performed Sanger sequencing of the DNA extracted from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded adenocarcinoma samples from 54 patients (mean age: 60 years). Most tumors were located in the rectum (83.3%), and 92.6% of the tumors were low-grade. Most patients (70.4%) reported never smoking, and 61.1% of patients had consumed alcohol. We identified 27 variants of APC, including 3 novel mutations (c.4310_4319delAAACACCTCC, c.4463_4470delinsA, and c.4506_4507delT). All three novel mutations are classified as deleterious by MutationTaster2021. We found four synonymous variants (c.330C>A, c.366C>T, c.513T>C, and c.735G>A) of HOXB13. For KRAS, we found six variants (Asp173, Gly13Asp, Gly12Ala, Gly12Asp, Gly12Val, and Gln61His), the last four of which are pathogenic. In conclusion, here we contribute new genetic variation data and provide clinicopathological information pertinent to CRC in Rwanda.

Emergency medicine doctoral education in Africa: a scoping review of the published literature

BackgroundWhile Africa accounts for a significant proportion of world population, and disease and injury burden, it produces less than 1% of the total research output within emergency care. Emergency care research capacity in Africa may be expanded through the development of doctoral programmes that aim to upskill the PhD student into an independent scholar, through dedicated support and structured learning. This study therefore aims to identify the nature of the problem of doctoral education in Africa, thereby informing a general needs assessment within the context of academic emergency medicine.MethodsA scoping review, utilising an a priori, piloted search strategy was conducted (Medline via PubMed and Scopus) to identify literature published between 2011 and 2021 related to African emergency medicine doctoral education. Failing that, an expanded search was planned that focused on doctoral education within health sciences more broadly. Titles, abstracts, and full texts were screened for inclusion in duplicate, and extracted by the principal author. The search was rerun in September 2022.ResultsNo articles that focused on emergency medicine/care were found. Following the expanded search, a total of 235 articles were identified, and 27 articles were included. Major domains identified in the literature included specific barriers to PhD success, supervision practices, transformation, collaborative learning, and research capacity improvement.ConclusionsAfrican doctoral students are hindered by internal academic factors such as limited supervision and external factors such as poor infrastructure e.g. internet connectivity. While not always feasible, institutions should offer environments that are conducive to meaningful learning. In addition, doctoral programmes should adopt and enforce gender policies to help alleviate the gender differences noted in PhD completion rates and research publication outputs. Interdisciplinary collaborations are potential mechanisms to develop well-rounded and independent graduates. Post-graduate and doctoral supervision experience should be a recognised promotion criterion to assist with clinician researcher career opportunities and motivation. There may be little value in attempting to replicate the programmatic and supervision practices of high-income countries. African doctoral programmes should rather focus on creating contextual and sustainable ways of delivering excellent doctoral education.

Poor Representation of Developing Countries in Editorial Boards of Leading Obstetrics and Gynaecology Journals.

Evidence suggests a limited contribution to the total research output in leading obstetrics and gynaecology journals by researchers from the developing world. Editorial bias, quality of scientific research produced and language barriers have been attributed as possible causes for this phenomenon. The aim of this study was to understand the prevalence of editorial board members based out of low and lower-middle income countries in leading journals in the field of obstetrics and gynaecology. The top 21 journals in the field of obstetrics and gynaecology were selected based on their impact factor, SCImago ranking and literature search. The composition of the editorial boards of these journals was studied based on World Bank Income Criteria to understand the representation status of researchers from low and lower-middle income countries. A total of 1315 board members make up the editorial composition of leading obstetrics and gynaecology journals. The majority of these editors belong to high-income countries (n=1148; 87.3%). Low (n=6; 0.45%) and lower-middle income (n=55; 4.18%) countries make up for a very minuscule proportion of editorial board members. Only a meagre 9 out of 21 journals have editorial board members from these countries (42.85%). Low and low-middle countries have poor representation in the editorial boards of leading obstetrics and gynaecology journals. Poor representation in research from these countries has grave consequences for a large proportion of the global population and multidisciplinary collaborative efforts must be taken to rapidly change this statistic with immediate effect.

Research on Sustainable Development Goals: &lt;em&gt;How has Indian Scientific Community responded?

Since the adoption of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, various countries across the world have started programmes to achieve the relevant targets under SDGs. The advancements in research and development play a crucial role in achieving these targets. Motivated by this a few studies have tried to map the research publications with their relevance to specific SDGs. However, there are no existing detailed studies with reference to India. Therefore, this article attempts to measure the research activities on SDGs in India. It utilises standard bibliometrics approach and textual analysis of data collected from Dimensions database for a five-year period (2016–2020). The results show a positive response from the Indian research community towards the SDGs. About 12 percent of the total research output from India is found directly related to SDGs. The three SDGs namely SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being), SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and SDG 13 (Climate Change) have received most attention from the Indian research community. Technical subjects such as, Engineering, Medical and Health Sciences, and Chemical Sciences are the main contributors. The major contributing institutions, authors and journals are identified.

Mapping the research productivity with its social impact of universities of west Bengal in the field of engineering and computer science

Research performance is one of the major concerns for all the higher education institutions. Research is one of the important among many factors for assessing the quality of an institute. Research reflects with the facilities provided by the institutes, such facilities like funding, journal and database accessibility, reward and recognition etc. The study aims to measure the research performance in the field of Engineering and Computer Sciences of six NAAC ‘A’ graded universities of West Bengal. The study also highlights the variance in terms of total research output of these universities. The study based on literature available in Scopus databases only. The study finds a huge variance among universities in terms of total publications in the subject fields taken for the study. Study also highlights the social impact of some top cited articles from these fields.

Reflections to Research Productivity of Kurkshetra University Kurukshetra, Haryana (India) from 2011-2020: a Bibliometric Analysis

The present study reflects the research output of Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, Haryana, India made from 2011 to 2020 by using data from Scopus database. The study shows the total research output produced by the scientific scholars of the university, most prolific authors, International collaborations and the preferred sources for publications during the decade. The study concludes that KUK’s research output in terms of publications was more than three thousand (3167) during a span of 10 years; Maximum growth rate was marked in the year 2019; Highest Citations was recorded in the year 2011 (5012) while the lowest citations in 2020 (739); More than seventy percent of total publications appeared in the top ten subjects; Highest publications were contributed the subject category chemistry (590) followed by Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (445); KUK at International Level had highest collaboration with United States in publication of research output papers (51 papers); Top ten productive authors of KUK contributed 24.53 % share of cumulative total research output made during ten years; and Highest contribution was made by Kumar, R (194 Papers) followed by Pal A (93 papers)

Research Productivity of Maharshi Dayanand University (MDU): a Quantitative Approach

The present research paper investigate the research productivity of Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak from 2011 to 2020.The paper carried out various parameters of bibliometric such as total output and cited publications; year wise distribution of research output; most prolific author, top cited articles of the MDU authors and most preferred source by authors. This study found that the most preferred document form is article with 2426 (71.31%) publications followed by review with 383 (11.26%) publications and most productive year is 2020 (15.20%) followed by 2019 (15.14%) among MDU publications during the study period. The study explored that in terms of number of publications, Pundir, C.S. is most productive author of MDU with 169 publications followed by P.Shukla with 148 contributions. It is also noticed that top fifteen authors collectively produced 37% research output of total publications of MDU . The Aip Conference Proceedings contributed highest research output (42) among top ten preferred sources of university and these top ten sources together produced around 8.96% of the total research output. The study found that the article titled “Nanostructured graphene/Fe3O4 incorporated polyaniline as a high performance shield against electromagnetic pollution” authored by Singh, K. et al. published in the year 2013 received highest number of citations.

P7. Medical Students’ Perceived Access to Research and Areas for Potential Intervention: A Comparison of Two Medical Campuses

Background: Integrated plastic surgery residency applicants are evaluated based on several selection criteria, including USMLE scores, letters of recommendation, research productivity, and AOA status. Availability of mentors, school location, and emphasis on research play key factors in research productivity. Uniquely, third- and fourth-year students at our medical school do their preclinical years at Campus A, with two-thirds of each class attending Campus A and one-third attending Campus B for rotations. This creates differences in mentor-student ratios that may afford different opportunities. This study aimed to characterize the differences in research environments and evaluate the avenues for and barriers to involvement in research Methods: A total of 52 third- and fourth-year medical students across both clinical campuses completed email surveys querying the research involvement of the students during medical school and the avenues used and barriers experienced by each respondent Results: The average number of unique research experiences per respondent was 2.8 for Campus A and 3.4 for Campus B (p=0.276). Average research output per person, defined as total number of posters, abstracts, and presentations, was 7.6 projects for Campus A and 8.7 projects for Campus B (p=0.256). However, among fourth-year students, this number was 3.35 for Campus A and 4.83 for Campus B (p=0.085). The most commonly reported avenues to research involved outreach to the student (49.1%) and self-initiation (37.7%). The most commonly reported barriers were categorized as student knowledge or skill deficits (44.5%) and a deficit in mentorship (19.6%) Conclusion: Increased mentor-student ratios do not necessarily correlate with increased research involvement among students. While it was found that graduating M4s at a high mentor-student ratio campus had a greater number of unique research experiences, the relationship did not hold true for total research output or when comparing the number of unique experiences among all students. A significant proportion of respondents reported systemic barriers, including non-response from mentors and unawareness of available projects, which are potential confounders in any association between student-mentor ratios. While the most common avenue for involvement was via outreach by residents, attendings, and administration, these barriers present an opportunity to improve involvement through tailored internal structures.

POS-426 CLINICAL TRIAL DATABASE (CTD): INTEGRATED DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR CLINICAL TRIALS

Clinical trials comprise small fraction of total research output from developing countries. Overwhelmed healthcare systems, and lack of infrastructure, trained manpower and central systems that would record all clinical data are major challenges faced by clinicians in these settings. These forbid proper assessment of outcomes and hence, discourage development of robust clinical research systems or networks. To overcome some of these, we have designed a web based database system.

India’s research contribution to world LIS literature: a study 2011–20

PurposeThis study aims to find out the India’s research contribution to world Library and Information Science (LIS) literature from 2011 to 2020. Attempt has been made to reflect both the number of research articles published by the Indian LIS researchers during the past decade and the percentage share of Indian LIS researchers to the world LIS literature. Attempt has also been made to reflect the 20 leading LIS researchers from India, 20 leading LIS journals in which Indian LIS researchers mostly prefer to publish their research results and leading LIS research institutions and more.Design/methodology/approachThe scope of the study is limited to library and information research undertaken across the world in general and India in particular during the past decade, viz., 2011–20. To undertake the present study, data were retrieved from SCOPUS data source. The data were retrieved keeping in view the objectives of the study; accordingly, key words were framed and used to search the relevant data.FindingsOverall 77,659 research articles were published in the subject discipline of LIS across the world during the past decade, viz., 2011 through 2020. During the period of study, LIS researchers from India contributed 3,562 research articles constituting 4.59% of the total global LIS research output. The USA emerged the leading LIS research country with 33.03% research contribution, while India emerged as the fifth largest LIS research country in the world. A total of 12.85% research articles from India were contributed by 20 leading researchers. Only two LIS research journals from India were found indexed in the SCOPUS, in which 18.10% research articles were published by Indian LIS researchers during the period of study. More than 80% research results produced by Indian LIS researchers were published in foreign LIS research journals, mostly published from the USA and the UK. A good lot of Indian LIS researchers prefer to publish their research results in open access research journals. Library professionals, teachers and scholars from University of Delhi and University of Kashmir were found more active in LIS research in India.Research limitations/implicationsIndia is one of the world’s popular LIS academic, research and practicing country and has more responsibility toward world LIS research, whereby India, apart from fulfilling its own LIS research requirements, has to meet out the global LIS research demand. Thereon, if it lacks on research front, which otherwise acts as a backbone in the survival of a subject discipline, the survival of subject discipline may become difficult.Social implicationsIndia is one of the most progressive LIS research countries in the world and is about to play a far greater role in propagating newer and modern library practices and services in the years to come.Originality/valueQuantification of research output at regional level or country level is very common among LIS professionals; accordingly, the existing study adds to existing world LIS literature about the India’s contribution to world LIS research during the past decade.

Analysis of Romanian National Publication Output in Orthopedics

(1) Aim: To analyze the publication output from Romania in the Web of Science (WoS) category of orthopedics. (2) Methods: We have used the WoS Core Collection Advanced Search between 2009 and 2018. (3) Results: Under the WoS Orthopedics category in SCI-Expanded, we found 72 articles with Romania as the country of origin, representing 0.105% of the total Romanian research output. Using journal rankings, distribution by quartile was: 1–12 (16.7%), 2–33 (45.8%), 3–9 (12.5%) and 4–18 (25%). Average citations in total and per year by category were: 1–22.6 range 1–91 (2.56), 2–8.85 range 0–30 (1.64), 3–8.44 range 1–30 (1.25), and 4–4.11 range 0–16 (0.74). Thirteen articles published from 1986 to 2008 were excluded by limiting the timespan. When searching for all document types and all WoS core collection citation indexes, we found 107 items; the total citations increased from 714 to 806. (4) Conclusions: Orthopedic publications from Romania have increased in the last decade, but are still low compared to category averages; however, the bibliometric qualitative distribution and patterns mostly resemble that of comparators.

Copyright's impact on data mining in academic research

With the proliferation of digital data, data mining (DM)—in the sense of the discovery of valuable structures in large sets of data—is expected to increase the productivity of many types of research. This paper discusses how copyright affects DM by academic researchers. In some territories, academic DM is lawful if researchers have lawful access to input works. In other territories such as the European Union, lawful DM additionally requires specific consent by rights holders. Based on bibliometric data and quasi‐experimental research designs, we show that where academic DM requires specific rights holder consent: (1) DM publications make up a significantly lower share of total research output, and (2) stronger rule of law is associated with less DM research. To our knowledge, this study is the first to empirically document an adverse effect of intellectual property (IP) on innovation under particular circumstances. There is strong evidence that copyright exceptions or limitations promote the adoption of DM research.

Microbial keratinase and the bio-economy: a three-decade meta-analysis of research exploit

Microbial keratinase research has been on an upward trajectory due to the robustness and efficiency of the enzyme toward various green technological processes that promote economic development and environmental sustainability. A compendium of research progression and advancement within the domain was achieved through a bibliometric study to understand the trend of research productivity, scientific impacts, authors' involvement, collaboration networks, and the advancement of knowledge gaps for future research endeavours. A three-decade (1990 to 2019) scholarly published articles were retrieved from the web of science database using a combination of terms "keratinas* or keratinolytic proteas* or keratinolytic enzym*", and subsequently analyzed for bibliometric indicators. A collection of 330 peer-reviewed, research, articles were retrieved for the survey period and authored by 1063 researchers with collaboration index of 3.27. Research productivity was most in 2013 with total research output of 28 articles. The top three authors' keywords were keratinase, keratin and protease with a respective frequency of 188, 26 and 22. India, China and Brazil ranked top in terms of keratinase research outputs and total citation with respective article productivity (total citations) of 85 (1533), 57 (826), and 36 (764). This study evaluated the trend of keratinase research outputs, scientific impact, collaboration networks and biotechnology innovations. It has the potentials to influence positively decision making on future research direction, collaborations and development of products for the bio-economy.

Where there is no research: a bibliometric analysis of health research output from the resource-constrained Bihar state of India

Background Significant gap exists in health research output globally, both in terms of geographic distribution and priorities. In India, wide inter-state disparity in health research output is reported and eight large states with a combined population of nearly half of India contribute to less than one-tenth of total research output. Bihar is one of the most resource-constrained states in this group with multiple health systems challenges. The objectives of this study were to understand the trend, distribution, focus, actors, and funding sources of health research on Bihar in order to propose policy recommendations. Methods A bibliometric analysis was carried out for all PubMed indexed original research papers on health, which is either focused on Bihar or authored by an author from an organization in Bihar. Trend, author affiliation, location, theme, and funding source was analysed by review of either abstract or if required by review of the full text. Results A total of 982 research papers were extracted, out of which 40% was basic or clinical research and nearly 60% was public health research. There was an extraordinary surge in research output during the last decade. Clinical subjects (25 %) followed by leishmaniasis (23%) were the most common theme. Medical institutions (45%) were the biggest contributor to health research. More than 60% of papers were authored by a lead author from outside Bihar and the majority do not have a local co-author. 11 leading organizations published more than 35% of total research papers. ‘Leishmaniasis’ contributed to more than 35% of the research output by the author based in Bihar and more than 90% research output of the leading research institution in Bihar. The majority of the funded research in the last decade was supported by international agencies. Conclusions The health research output from Bihar is very limited. The recent surge in research output is driven by global actors or from actors located in bigger cities and more developed states within India. To strengthen the health research systems, a specific health research policy should be formulated to steward and improve the health research ouput from Bihar.

On the topicality and research impact of special issues

The publication of special issues constitute an important yet underinvestigated phenomenon of scholarly communication. In an attempt to draw attention to the proliferation of special issues, Priem (2006) suggested that their commissioning has an underestimated opportunity cost, given the relative scarcity of publication space: by distorting the “marketplace for ideas” through the commanding of preselected topical distributions, special issues undermine the total research output by “squeezing out” high-quality but topically unrelated articles. The present paper attempts to test this hypothesis by providing a topicality and research impact analysis of conference-based, monographic, and regular issues published between 2010 and 2015 inclusive and indexed in Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science. The results show that the titles and abstracts of articles copublished are topically closer to each other than those copublished in regular issues, which suggests that their relative importance might influence the total topical distribution. However, disciplinary and overall comparison of relative citations for both special and regular issues shows that intraissue averages and variances in the former case are respectively higher and lower than in the regular issue context, which undermines not only the abovementioned hypothesis, but also the belief that editors often “fill up” special issues by accepting substandard papers.